Leiti Hsu - Travel, Food, and Journy
How can you scale cool? True personalization in travel. Leiti Hsu, Cofounder of Journy (an AI-enabled, expert-curated modern travel planning service that personalizes your trip planning, including bookings and reservations), show host, and food connector, joins John Matson and Bess Chapman in the MouthMedia Network studio. Journy uses humans, who do their jobs better with tech? Leiti and Susan (her cofounder) are the Yin and the Yang. They met dancing on speakers in Shanghai, while both traveling, and they become travel buddies. Traditional travel agencies still have humans doing things a computer can do better. Journy uses technology so that their humans can spend 80% of their time doing things only humans can do - planning amazing trips. Journy is for all! You can be on a budget or go for an ultimate luxury experience. Either way, Journy knows their customer extremely well. Learn about QQ! A texture that Taiwanese and other asian cultures love. Think boba in bubble tea - like al dente but squishier. Leiti saw the end of media as we knew it as Gourmet Magazine folded, and now surprisingly Journy has become a big of a media company. An unexpected brand Journy has worked with is 23 and Me. They gave away 23 DNA kits and planned the trips for those people back to their ancestors’ countries. Leiti’s home away from home travel-wise is San Sebastain. It’s the Taiwan of Europe! It’s like paradise with really good food. After Leiti’s mom was diagnosed with stage 4 non-smoking lung cancer, she created her dream restaurant pop-up. A hole in the wall Taiwanese beef noodle soup spot, called Tsu Soup.